Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Vienna
It was almost adolescent how much I missed him.
You know how when you're young and obsessed with someone to the point where it's painful to be away from them? The kind of feelings you, you know, grow out of as you get older.
Except, of course, I hadn't grown out of them, it seemed.
I felt like someone had hollowed out a part of me. The first few days, especially, were rough. I didn't sleep much. I felt restless and unsure what to do with myself.
Luckily for me, though, I was surrounded by people who understood how I was feeling and worked to help distract me.
Coach led me through increasingly difficult yoga practices, and I even got to a point where I was okay with him touching me enough to help me into my first shoulder stand.
Morgaine asked me to take care of the chickens, a task I knew she was capable of since she did it every other day, but she wanted to give me something to do.
Nyx brought me into the studio to do one of her women's self-defense classes. No men allowed. Aside from Rook who lived upstairs. And Slash who hung outside just to help me feel safe.
Detroit scored me a private lesson from an experienced yoga teacher at the gym, who pushed me harder than Coach did when she heard I might be interested in teaching myself someday.
Still, I always had to come back to the clubhouse.
I had to feel the ghost of Riff all around.
The longing I felt for him, as each day passed me by, felt less and less like that for a comfort person, and increasingly like, well, something else entirely.
The idea of that, though, sent me into a full-on panic attack that had both Coach and Morgaine sitting with me to calm me down. Then I had an immediate emergency meeting with my therapist who once again reminded me that this sort of thing was perfectly normal.
"Many women who have been through traumatic abuse have loving partners at home," she'd argued as I fretted. "And it is a normal progression for them to crave more of that love and, eventually, intimacy with them."
She reminded me that I was working on my own personal timeline, no one else's. And that the progression of my feelings with Riff was entirely up to me. She told me that, if I felt safe and interested, that I was free to explore more with Riff. And that if it felt wrong, I was just as free to dial things back.
As if I'd been seeking reassurances that it wasn't wrong for me to feel the way I was feeling, I slowly allowed myself to consider a reality where Riff was more than just a comfort person and friend to me.
By the time Coach told me that they were on the last leg home, I had all but wrapped my head around allowing myself to ease into… more with Riff.
As I watched the car make its way up the road and into the driveway, there was no stopping myself from throwing open the door, running down the front path, then literally throwing myself into Riff's arms.
My heart felt full to bursting as he whipped me around in a circle, his arms holding onto me just as tightly as I was clinging to him.
And, suddenly, all my uncertainty about it disappeared as he set me down.
So my hands moved up his chest, went to his neck, and I moved up on my toes, then sealed my lips to him.
Because nothing felt more right in that moment.
I thought it would just be a quick, enthusiastic peck, just showing him that there was interest.
I didn't expect to melt into it, into him, loving the firm, yet gentle way he held me as he tilted my head back, deepening the kiss.
Tingles spread across my chest, then through my body, until every inch of me felt like it was vibrating. Not just with desire, though that was growing in an unexpectedly intense, but somewhat nerve-racking way, but it was also just undiluted joy.
Joy.
God, I didn't remember the last time I felt such a flood of it.
Sure, there had been glimpses of it here and there. The first time I got my body twisted in a hard asana, when a guided meditation, for a moment, took all the pain and fear away, when we were all gathered around a Christmas tree opening presents, and a bunch of times Riff and I went out to explore.
But this, this felt like sunlight was beaming through my body, lighting me, and warming me up.
By the time we broke apart, Colter and Raff were gone, disappeared into the clubhouse, giving us privacy.
"Heya, darlin'," Riff said, giving me that familiar, lazy smile, but his eyes were burning. "I missed you," he said, making my heart feel all gooey.
"I missed you too," I told him. I meant it down to my bones. "How was the, ah, trip?" I asked, enjoying the way his hands were absentmindedly rubbing across my lower back.
"Too long," he told me. "What have you been up to?"
"Everyone has been keeping me busy," I admitted. "I took a class with Nyx. And I had a personal yoga lesson at the gym."
"Good for you, V. That's awesome."
"We should probably go inside," I said, realizing I hadn't even bothered to put my coat on in my excitement, and the cold was starting to slice into me.
"Yeah," he agreed, sliding his arm around my hips, and walking me inside.
"Oh! Coach and I built a window ledge for Vernon. You want to see it?" I asked as we moved inside, finding the men in the kitchen talking in low voices to Slash.
"Absolutely," he agreed, leading me up into our shared room.
He oohed and ahhed over the ledge for a moment as Vernon hopped onto it to show off its stability.
"You're freezing," Riff said as a little shiver racked my system.
He led me over to the bed, pushing me onto it, and pulling up all my blankets to create my little cocoon.
"Sit with me?" I asked, and the way his shoulders relaxed suggested he'd been waiting for that invitation.
He toed out of his shoes and moved around the bed to climb in with me. Wanting him closer, I slipped him under the covers with me, then scooted in at his side, resting my head on his chest like I'd been craving since he'd left.
"I haven't slept well without you here," I admitted as his hands automatically went to my hair.
"I'd much rather share a room with you than my brother," he told me. "He kicked me out for an entire night."
"Why?"
"He had… company," he told me as his fingers went from sifting through my hair to rubbing gentle circles across my scalp.
"Oh," I said, stomach twisting at the idea of Riff kicking out Raff to have company another night.
As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Riff took a deep breath. "All I could think about was you," he admitted.
"Yeah?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said, leaning over to press his lips to the top of my head. "Listen, I am not here to pressure you about anything. But I feel like I need to tell you that there's… interest on my part. And that if you feel the same way, I'm in. No matter how long it takes for you to feel comfortable with the idea of dating again."
"There's interest," I told him, belly wobbling a bit at the admission. "I talked to my therapist about it, actually."
"Yeah? That's good. I'm glad you have someone to talk to about it. I know things might be… really complicated for you."
"She said that there's no wrong time to date again, that it's really just up to me and how things feel to me."
"I know that it might be a long time before you feel comfortable with more than this," he said, tightening his hold on me. "But that's okay with me. I'm fine with waiting. I don't want you to feel any pressure."
"I don't. You feel safe," I admitted. It was the one constant in my life since the shed. Riff was safe. And I wanted to be with him. "I know you would never push me."
His head tilted to rest on mine for a moment, both of us just enjoying the moment, coming to terms with this new reality of ours.
Then, "Oh, I have pictures to show you," he declared, reaching for his phone. "I got a picture of a beaver," he declared, voice excited. "A fucking beaver," he added, shaking his head as he scrolled his pictures to find the ones he was looking for to show me. "These aren't as exciting to me, since I've been to wildlife reserves in Florida a few times now, but I figure you have probably never seen a flamingo. So I got pictures and videos."
He had lots of wildlife pictures to show me. An alligator walking down the sidewalk like some pedestrian. A giant iguana sunning itself on top of someone's car. And an adorably strange armadillo.
"I think I would like to go on another road trip one day," I decided when I was finished looking at all of his pictures.
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "It was nice seeing all the different states and the bison."
"We could plan a bookstore road trip," he suggested. "Map out a path where we hit all of the best bookstores in each state."
"That might be the best idea I've ever heard," I decided.
"We could do it for your birthday in May," he suggested.
There was a second there where my belly flipped, feeling like I hadn't ever told him my birthdate. But, I mean, clearly, I must have if he knew it. We talked a lot.
"That's a great idea. I… didn't get to celebrate my last birthday," I admitted.
"Yeah," he agreed, giving me a squeeze. "We should plan the trip before your birthday, then be back here on the actual day, so we can have a big party with our people."
Our people.
I realized at that moment that these men and women and kids who I'd gotten to know over the past few months truly were that. Ours. His, of course. But also mine.
I'd gone from being so alone in the world after my grandmother passed to having a whole group of people around who cared about me and who I was really starting to love. Each and every one of them. Even the standoffish Slash and the often-absent Rook.
Since I set foot in Shady Valley, I had a feeling that I was never going to leave. And each day that I spent here, I got more and more sure of that. I couldn't leave these people. I couldn't imagine Christmases and New Years without them. My stomach hurt at the idea of not being able to see these sweet little kids grow up.
Maybe alongside my own kids .
I'd always wanted them. Several, in fact. And I didn't want to imagine a future where I didn't get to have that because of something that had happened to me.
I would get there some day.
And if there is ever a man who would be there for me on that journey, it was Riff.
"Did you—what was that?" I asked, hearing a slam below, then a raised male voice.
Riff was off the bed and across the room in a blink, whipping open the door, and listening.
"Rook," he said, giving me an apologetic look. "I'm gonna go see what's going on," he said, disappearing out into the hallway.
Rook, in the time I'd known him, had been pretty chill. If there was ever someone I didn't think I'd hear yelling, it was him.
Curious, I followed Riff's path out into the hallway, then downstairs, where Rook was pacing back and forth along the kitchen island.
"I'm so fucking sick of it," he snarled.
"I know it sucks—" Colter tried to interject, but Rook whipped on him, anger sparking off of every nerve ending.
"How the fuck do you know? You pay that sniveling shit a couple grand and he doesn't even show his face in this town for weeks. When have you ever had him show up to drug test you? When has he tossed your fucking apartment three times in one goddamn week? You have no fucking idea."
Colter's hands went up in a placating gesture.
"Look," Coach tried as Rook resumed his pacing. "We all know Nancy is a nightmare. But you gotta stop letting her get to you so much. It's only going to make shit worse."
"She denied me again ," Rook growled, picking up a glass that had been sitting on the counter, and tossing it before anyone could stop him.
A gasp escaped me as it shattered, a loud sound in the open, quiet space.
Rook turned quickly, spotting me, his face twisting up in concern and regret.
"Fuck, I'm sorry, Vienna," he said, voice soft, the anger bleeding out of him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't—"
While I did love how sweet they all were with me, I did also sometimes bristle at how they treated me like I was so fragile, so breakable.
"Who is Nancy?" I asked, cutting off whatever he was about to say.
"She's Rook's parole officer," Riff supplied. "She's…"
"A raging bitch?" I supplied, getting a surprised chuckle out of the men.
"Something like that," Riff agreed. "Her husband was put into a coma from some random man on parole. So she decided to change career paths and, essentially, harass the fuck out of all other parolees."
"Oh, wow. What did she deny?" I asked, figuring the usually so well-contained Rook wouldn't be so mad about general harassment, even if it was excessive.
"She won't let me get in touch with my mom. Not to go see her. Not to call her. Nothing."
Right.
Rook's mom.
Who was in a mental health facility ever since whatever happened with the man who swindled her.
The man that Rook attacked for doing that.
"That's cruel," I said, my heart aching for him. All he wanted to do was see his mom. Who could deny him that? Who could deny her , an innocent party, that? "How long is your parole?" I asked.
"Three years."
"How far into it are you?"
"About a year and a half," he said, jaw muscle twitching. Whereas I was thinking along the lines of Well, at least you're halfway done , I imagine his mindset was more similar to I'm only halfway done?
"There's no way to get a parole officer switched?"
"Yeah, but not really," Coach said, shaking his head.
"Do you have one?" I asked.
"Not really. I got county parole, which is done by the cops and, luckily, that wasn't much of an issue."
Because, I imagine, they bribed many of the cops in town.
"But you do have one?" I asked Colter. "How did you leave town for so long?"
"Because my P.O., Mick, is four times divorced with alimony on all those exes, plus child support for three kids. He's drowning in debt and all too happy to take a bribe to look the other way."
"And Nancy can't be bribed?" I asked.
To that, there were a few snorts around the room.
"Nancy thinks she is the law. She gives no one any leeway," Riff explained. "And while no one on parole is supposed to drink, do drugs, engage in illegal activity, or be in contact with any criminals, because of Rook's past, he's also not allowed to have any tech."
That was why he was always on the computer in the office at Nyx's studio. Because he wasn't allowed to have it at his place in the apartment above.
"Would it be possible for any of us to visit your mom for you?" I asked. "Just to bring her a message from you?"
"No. It's family only," Rook said, exhaling hard. "Thanks for caring, though."
I did.
Care.
More than I could even begin to express to them. They'd been giving me something I hadn't had in so long. People who cared about me as much as I cared about them. Family.
I honestly don't believe my recovery would be going so well if not for each and every one of them.
I mean, more so with Riff.
Without him, I think I would still be in a cocoon most hours of the day.
But without the others, I was pretty sure I would still be terrified of other people, of leaving the house, of never feeling safe around crowds again.
Colter and Coach led Rook off into the living room, sharing some beers, and trying to decompress.
Drama over, Riff and I silently grabbed a hoard of snacks and made our way back upstairs as well, climbing wordlessly into the bed, eating junk, watching mindless TV, and just being close to each other.
And when, at some point, the urge to kiss him again overtook me, he let me set the pace and pressure. He let me explore a bit with my hands. And while he held me and stroked my hair, even softly teased his fingers over my face and neck, he never demanded more, just let me take the lead until I felt like I was at my limit. Then tucked me in at his side and held me.
I lay there in his arms, desire pinging off my nerve endings, doing some of my guided breathing to fight back the rush of memories and fears that reared up.
And I drifted to sleep surprisingly quickly, safe next to Riff.
For the first time in a long time, I didn't have nightmares.